11:23 PM,
May 9, 2013

J. Edgar Hoover reigned for 48 years as America's top cop.

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For nearly 48 years, John Edgar Hoover was America's top cop, appointed as the sixth director of the Bureau of Investigation on May 10, 1924, and becoming the first director of the FBI when it was created on March 22, 1935. Under his stewardship, modern police methods were adopted, professional law enforcement standards were developed and vigorous campaigns were conducted against large criminal gangs (the Mafia) and corruption.

Those 48 years of power also led to abuses, most of which we learned about after his death, as Hoover compiled massive files on a seemingly arbitrary selection of ...